January 5

Sarah's fine motor abilities and attentiveness continue to expand. Carl recently found Sarah wearing my pajama shirt, fastening and unfastening the buttons repeatedly all by herself!! Holy moly!!!!! Her drawings of smiley faces and stick people have improved notably. She continues to enjoy practicing writing. We played at least 4 rounds of tic-tac-toe where she easily made her wobbly, perhaps unrecognizable, "x" and waited her turn. I sometimes had to prompt her to write in the empty squares and she doesn't yet understand the goal or idea of winning, but it still felt like we were really playing a game. With Carl, Sarah built a Goldiblox contraption and was more attentive and focused than she has been in the past with building something.

I am super excited about Sarah's puzzle progress. Puzzles used to seem so impossible, even perhaps a year ago. Coaching Sarah to manipulate a piece correctly seemed impossible. Now she easily completes the wood puzzles where you put a piece in a hole of the same shape. She easily completes the shape-sorter ball. This week I gave her one of the 3-piece jigsaw puzzles that have one simple picture and a three-letter word. I put the three pieces almost together so her role was very clear. Then I moved the pieces farther apart. Then I rotated one piece. Then I turned one piece over. Then I turned all of them over and rotated them differently. The last stage was the only one where she needed help and she asked for it after trying by herself for a while. I gave one verbal suggestion and she got it. I feel like I finally understand the way to help her in small increments. At one of my Son-Rise training sessions, another parent recommended The Woman Who Changed Her Brain by Barbara Arrowsmith Young. I skimmed it and initially didn't think I had gotten much from it. Now I realize I got the idea that doing a certain task repeatedly and with variation can strengthen neural pathways for seemingly unrelated things. I don't know what other skills and abilities connect to puzzle abilities, but I believe it is helpful for Sarah to be able to look at a problem and understand how to begin manipulating things and changing things towards her desired outcome. 

The girls continue to come up with jokes together that are a mystery to me. When they both tried to go in a small room at the same time, Sarah said "no, no key!" and Amy cracked up. Then they both repeated the phrase several times while cracking themselves up. They also like to sing "baba doink doink" which is a spin-off of Carl's version of the Sandra Boyton song, "Perfect Piggies." I just love how Sarah and Amy feed off each other and build off of each other's statements.

Carl installed a pull-up bar in our bedroom. Both girls like to hang from it (with help) and to pull on the stretchy assistant strap, bouncing and swinging and hanging.

We have a play date every week, alternating houses. In the past, when it was not at our house I would only take Amy while Sarah stayed home for SR time. Due to winter vacation, this week I took Sarah with me too. It was wonderful! I think she was more focused on the other kids because it was a new space and she didn't have all of her familiar things to do that might distract her from the other kids. Whatever the reason, it went beautifully. She promptly sat down to play with playdoh with the other kids, saying "want to play." She alternated isming with the lids and interacting with my friend or the other kids. There were moments that felt like totally typical kid play. While I am used to this with Sarah and Amy together or with Sarah and adults, it is much more rare with non-family kids. Totally awesome. I have rearranged our schedule so now we can have Sarah participate in play dates every week, not just the ones that are at our house. I feel so blessed to have found what feels like the perfect play date situation for where we are in our lives right now.

As we have eased out of vacation and into our more usual schedule, I notice I have a deep inner blah about some of the tasks I set for myself each day. Some of this is probably based on the true experience of Sarah's resistance and the rest is probably based on my expectation of her resistance and my feeling like a failure so, you know, maybe I shouldn't even try and that would be easier. Or maybe I give myself a yucky feeling in the pit of my stomach so I will do the tasks so then the feeling will go away. Whatever it is, I want to shift it but haven't yet sorted it out.

My recent jumble of thoughts and questions for myself (while still primarily feeling good and excited about everything)...I wonder at what point I will allow myself to be done with all of this. And why do certain parts feel hard so that I want to be done? (the parts that feel hard are probably the parts for which I am doing these various programs! or maybe the hardest part is how I still think I'm not doing enough or doing it well enough) What do I mean by the idea of being done? It isn't that I will stop being a mom or being attentive to my kids or feeding my family. But I do look forward to a time when it feels easier and when both kids are in school full time and when we can eat more normally without my tracking Sarah's intake so meticulously and being so cautious about changes. Am I taking us all the way? Is that possible? What does all the way mean? Can't we all always learn and grow? Yes, but with Amy I don't feel like I need to help so intensely. I just know she is going to thrive. Isn't Sarah thriving too, doing and learning new things every week? Have I already gotten the ball rolling enough that I can just sit back and enjoy the ride? Can I have that mentality but still also show up to do things to help accelerate the process, such as Becky's program and SR time and the continued food journey? I really believe there can be a middle ground where I feel as relaxed as if I was already at my goal, while still moving towards that goal. I just haven't quite sorted that out yet. Maybe I could figure out incremental changes to help myself with this, the way I did with Sarah and puzzles. So my incremental change today will be to feel that feeling of relaxed achievement while still doing a task I believe to be helpful at least one time today. Awesome. Woohoo! I can totally do this!

As I have been writing, Carl went downstairs to discover Sarah filling our humidifier all by herself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This involves using a step stool to get to the kitchen sink, climbing down with the pitcher of water, walking to the humidifier and opening the lid, pouring in the water, and repeating. There goes another pair of my socks!

I wish for you clarity towards whatever incremental change will get you where you want to go.