October 27

This weekend we had Becky Blake come for our second outreach and it has gone wonderfully. It is lovely to see how much the girls both love Becky and enjoy learning the new things she teaches us. We are adding in new activities and expanding the routines we have been doing. I'm excited to have more tools to help Sarah continue to flourish. This is probably perfect timing since just this week Sarah was starting to take over doing the bodywork routine, telling me she wanted to do it herself.

Last week we had a few play dates. For the first one Sarah was very interested in the girl who was visiting. Sarah said "hi" and "hey" to her repeatedly. The repetition was a bit like a newborn fawn getting it's social legs - not quite right but oh so very exciting and earnest.

Twice within the week Sarah apologized for hurting someone without being prompted. The first time was with Sonia and the second was with me. She was in her play car and accidentally backed up into me (in her defense I had come in quietly to clean up so I don't think she knew I was there). She immediately said "I sorry" and then followed it with "'scuse me." If you saw a pair of socks flying past you they were probably mine. :)

Sarah loves snuzzles. A snuzzle is when I rub the top of my head into her chest. I think it must tickle. I've been doing it as a way of celebrating her efforts probably since the beginning of our program and this is the first time she has been asking for it by name (I don't think I gave it a name until a few weeks ago). When I ask her for a snuzzle in return she usually rubs her hand on my forehead. Adorable.

We made pumpkin pie custard and she did almost all of the stirring. I thanked her for being so helpful and as she stirred she chirped, "helpful. so helpful" repeatedly.

We had a new sitter on Saturday and when I told Sarah that we had a babysitter coming she said "need a baby." Indeed! Usually I say the person's name or "sitter" and that makes more sense (we are not in need of a baby!).

Sarah has been starting to play outside by herself. It's not that she couldn't do this before but I usually go out too. Lately when Amy wants to stay in then I stay in and just watch Sarah through the windows. I love that she is independent and careful enough to do this. It was among our dream visions when we found our house that I could be inside fixing dinner and the girls could be out in the yard. 

One night the girls put pretend lemon on Carl's broccoli. He playfully paused saying maybe he would wait till later to eat it. Sarah responded, "Try it."

One morning this week I was not at my finest in terms of parenting. I came downstairs to fix breakfast feeling like pond scum and hearing internal mean voices suggesting the family would be better off without me, what good am I, etc. I checked my email and had the quotation below in an email from my mom. I instantly saw that I was heading down a path of finding all the things wrong with me and that that wouldn't actually help the day go any better. So I shifted to thinking of at least a few things I did well. By the time everyone else came down for breakfast I felt like I had had a reset and the day was a good one. Whew! Since the quotation was so helpful and timely for me I thought I would share it.

Nothing needs to be fixed. Everything is unfolding perfectly. So when you stand in your now accepting that all is well, then from that vibration, you become surrounded by more and more evidence that all is well. But when you're convinced that things are broken, that there is pollution, or that things have gone wrong, or that the government is doing conspiracies... then what happens is you get caught up in that vibration, and you begin to manifest that kind of stuff, and then you say, "See, I told you that things were going wrong." ---Abraham

October 20

I am feeling grateful this week for Sarah teaching me to cook. I mean, really cook. I could do a few things before but it wasn't really part of my skill set in the way it is now. While I still buy a few things for Carl, Amy, and I to eat on the side, primarily we eat what I make and I make everything we eat. When I was very young I used to go into the kitchen, grab a pie pan and fill it with a few ingredients. I didn't use a recipe. I baked it and served it to my amazing parents who actually sampled it! My skill level at that time was very very low. Now I chuckle as I grab a bowl and throw together ingredients for a baked good without a recipe and without measuring. Sometimes this doesn't work out, but often it does and is very good. I am more successfully creative than I used to be and I have Sarah to thank for providing a reason to do so.

One night after we read a bedtime story of If You Give a Pig a Party, Sarah started talking about some aspects of the story. She said she wanted to have a sleep over, a pillow fight, a sleep over with Pigeon. I said I didn't have Pigeon but she could have Gerald. Amy was incensed at the very suggestion of such a thing so I offered Olivia instead and Sarah snuggled up with Olivia for her sleep over.

I have overheard Sarah twice this week singing the alphabet while playing by herself. It is faster and more fluid than ever before. Meanwhile, Amy got on the piano yesterday and was playing while singing "the itsy bitsy spider."

During Carl's SR time this week, Sarah was climbing the stairs in the room (made from bricks and planks) and said "going to work." He asked what she was going to do at work and she said "work on a computer." He brilliantly created a laptop out of the two small white boards  in the room, with a keyboard on one and a screen on the other. As she pressed letters on the keyboard he wrote them on the screen. At one point he guided her to spell "m-o-m." He asked her if she knew what it spelled. She replied, "mom." !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel like she is in a very spongy pre-reading stage and really likes paying attention and learning, the same way she soaked it up and enjoyed learning to speak. This is so exciting.

Carl also had an amazing session with the cookie matching game. The pieces look like oreos and you can separate them to reveal different shapes inside, such as a heart, cirlce, star, etc. You have to have the top and bottom match to assemble the cookie. I had explained and modeled and helped her in the past but not very recently. Carl spread out all the pieces and explained to her what to do. She then independently did each and every one correctly!!!!!!!! When Carl told me this I nearly fell over.

Our field trip was to a friend's home for a tea party. It went quite well, with the girls snarfing down the strawberries. Sarah didn't want tea but she pretended to sip from her piece of jerky. We all wore hats to add to the festive outdoor feel, even though we were inside because it was cold and rainy outside.

You may remember Halloween has not been our strong suite. In past years I used to wonder if Sarah would ever be interested. This year both girls are both into the Great Pumpkin story (Peanuts) and some other Halloween books. I got answers from both girls when I asked what they wanted to be for Halloween. Amy says she wants to be a cat and that is the costume we have obtained. Hopefully her frequently changed mind will hold steady on the actual day. Sarah said she wanted to be a stripe. How to do that? We had some ideas and the original plan was that I would go out with Amy to look for costumes while Carl did SR time with Sarah. Sarah, however, really wanted to go on the adventure, so we decided to make it a family outing. Last year this same family outing was fraught with tension and unhappiness. As we drove, Carl and I discussed the parameters and rules for this outing (for the girls and ourselves). We went to a used-clothing store first and they had a striped outfit that Sarah loves and it fits her (despite claiming to be size 3T). This feels like a small miracle. For Amy's costume, Amy and I went to the actual Halloween store. Sarah and Carl went to the car to wait, with Sarah still wearing the costume that she didn't want to take off and wore for the rest of the day! 

October 13

Some weeks contain so much thought and fluctuation of feelings that I am amazed they are only a week long.

Last Sunday Carl and I went to the Pirates game, which they won. The cheering was intense. As I listened to the crowd of some 40 thousand people cheering, sometimes for one man, I thought about what that might feel like. What if that cheering was for you? What if we did that level of cheering in our own heads for our own achievements. What if each parent who helped their child learn to speak was given a deafening standing ovation? The achievements of kids with special needs and parents of kids with special needs are no less amazing or important. For that matter, the achievement of all people to get up each day and strive for their dreams, or just to get through the day, is also probably worthy of that cheering and recognition. It's just that some of us berate ourselves a bit for falling short of our goals, rather than celebrating what we did do (at least that tends to be true for me).

As I began to look into possible preschool situations for Amy for next year, I quickly became a tightly wound ball of panic as I realized that I should also look with an eye for Sarah. It is so much too early to know where Sarah will be developmentally next year. And yet, for some schools, the applications for next fall need to be submitted this fall. While I want to find a place that is a good fit for Amy, I think she will be able to thrive basically anywhere. For Sarah I think it is a much more influential decision. And it is one I really can't make yet. I might keep her mostly at home for another year. I might not. After talking with my mom, I realized that the answer is just to apply now so I can have the luxury of deciding later. J. also helped me get through some other challenges by reminding me that I didn't have to do them well, I just had to do them. 

We have had a couple exciting play dates in the past couple weeks. Often when Sarah is around other kids she either pays them no mind or she is so excited that her jaw and hands are moving constantly. She is starting to shift into calm attentiveness. She watched these two other kids very closely, with a still body for 70% of the time. She also followed them sometimes to do the same activity. 

She is also playing more with Amy. We had a three-way game of catch and ring-around-the rosey. Twice, in response to my prompt, she has helped Amy up after a fall. She is learning to ask people questions while looking at them rather than at me (this sometimes requires me to hide behind the person I want her to address). Mostly she gets practice asking Amy if she (Sarah) can wear the bug pajamas at night. Amy always says no and Sarah is always upset. But they are having a tiny conversation! I am diligently reminding myself to celebrate Amy's "no" as much as I would her "yes." It is wonderful that she knows her own mind and can express it clearly. And it is wonderful that Sarah is learning to ask for things by phrasing a question rather than a statement.

In response to finishing her juice one afternoon Sarah said "Nice work Miss Magoo. Wow. Holy Moly." It is so adorable when she repeats the praise and celebration that we use. It is just so cute coming out of her mouth. This was the first time she has called herself Miss Magoo, a name I gave her when she was very young.

We have Grammy and Granddad visiting this weekend and the girls are, of course, very excited to have them here. Amy has really taken to Grammy and Sarah is, as usual, very attached to Granddad. Last night at dinner, Sarah spontaneously took her painting off the wall where I had recently taped it. She held it and said "paint at school." We don't get many of these moments where she initiates showing something to someone and this was the first occurrence of showing art work. This was the most blatant show and tell I have ever witnessed from her. Wow. Holy Moly. Nice work Miss Magoo!

Sarah's itchy skin had cleared up and so I had been reintroducing some foods (just not bananas because I suspect they may have been the first itch offender a few weeks ago). And now she has itchy skin again. Argh! So back again we go. I am no good at just doing one new food at a time! But I really must do so from now on for my own sanity to make it easier to recognize problems.

Sometimes I am astounded when I realize a fun game was staring me in the face for months and I didn't see it. We recently got the wood pieces from Handwriting without Tears and Sarah loves it when we make letters and she takes them apart or steps over them. She makes some letters herself too. This week I realized I could make huge letters out of the blue planks and colored bricks that we have had for months. How did I miss that?? At least I figured it out now.

Our field trip was to a sincere pumpkin patch, and we were in search of the Great Pumpkin. We didn't see the GP but we did get a large pumpkin and several small ones. The girls could not have been more earnest or sincere as they hefted their small pumpkins into the wheel barrow and helped push it through the field.

October 6

Sometimes the veil between feeling totally amazing and feeling like crying seems very thin. I am rather fascinated by this and I think it points out to some degree how much things are a choice. And it also points out how maybe I am still not quite looking at some feelings that lurk under the surface. Because, hey, when things are feeling good, I want to roll with it and magnify it and there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with crying either, it is just that usually I know when I am carrying tears and this week I have been more surprised by them. They seem to show themselves most when I feel I may have done something wrong. Usually something tiny and inconsequential, but it mars my striving for perfection. AFOG, as my mother would say. Another F*ing Opportunity for Growth. (this could also be some new response to my starting Verapamil again to avoid cluster headaches, which were starting to send out their warning tendrils)

Anywho, I actually have been feeling really happy most of the time. I'm also ramping our program back up a tiny bit. September was a hiatus of necessity. Now I am doing more SR hours and realizing that Sonia and I need regularly scheduled time together without children to meet and evaluate where we are and where we want to be going (with Sarah). We now have that in place. 

For our field trip we went to Beechwood Farms, which is part of the Audubon Society. It is nearby, quiet, beautiful, free, and has a wonderful area for kids to climb and explore. The girls loved it. At the beginning they held hands while walking around. I have no idea who initiated it but it melted my heart.

Sarah has been getting quite creative with the music movements. She experiments with different ways of doing the moves, such as crawling while running, hopping, skating, etc. She is getting stronger and more graceful. Some of her motions look like yoga moves (cobra). Sometimes she does the clapping or arm swinging while lying on her belly. She has also started requesting that I do Becky's program and it has worked the past two days to do so without shutting us into the family room.

Sarah had a dentist appointment this week and it was the first time I took her to my dentist instead of a pediatric one. She is always amazing with all sorts of appointments and procedures and this time was no different. The part that I was most thrilled about was how wonderful the dentist and hygienist were, especially the latter. She was phenomenal in taking her time, allowing Sarah to have breaks, explaining what was going to happen next, and giving Sarah time to answer questions. 

I've been thinking about what a gift Amy is in terms of Sarah-Rise. She is the embodiment of acceptance, love, and delight. Sure, the girls fight, but that is important too. Amy can help Sarah with social interactions (with our help) in a way that we couldn't on our own. She invites Sarah to play with no doubt, just her wanting to play. Sometimes she doesn't ask, she just begins the activity. She throws a ball at Sarah or she squirts Sarah with water in the tub. Sarah loved being squirted and she did play ball a tiny bit! When Sarah says a line from a book that she loves or describes what she is doing (eg. jumping on the bed or sitting in the dark), Amy has a way of picking up the line with enthusiasm that bursts out of every pore. I bow down to her embodied joy. Sarah can totally rock interactions with adults, but she still needs help where other kids are concerned. Amy is the first step. She is familiar, safe, and probably as predictable as a kid could be. Not that Amy is necessarily predictable, but Sarah knows her well enough that it is probably easier to take her in without it being overwhelming or overly exciting.