Yesterday we had Amy's birthday party (the actual day is in the middle of the week) and it was wonderful. I made a Donald Duck cake as per Amy's request. I found a recipe for white chocolate frosting that Sarah could eat and that I could dye with veggie based dyes I found at Whole Foods.
For Amy's present from me, we went to Once Upon a Child a few days ago and bought used fancy dresses that she can wear for anything except outside running and climbing. (I got the idea from my friend R.) Sarah picked out a couple dresses and wore one for maybe an hour tops. There is so much growing awareness not to force children into stereotypical roles but I think it is good to remember that it is ok to honor them when they present themselves. Amy loves traditionally girly things and it is ok to run with that. Meanwhile, if Sarah could wear shorts or sports pants and flip flops all year long she would. We just make cold weather accommodations. For Amy's party, Amy wore a fancy dress and Sarah wore her Australian soccer jersey. I love this expression of their individual selves.
Sarah and I had a great SR session this week. She was putting number cards into a blue bucket and I joined her. Then she dumped them and I said "splat!" She loved that. I started saying "plunk" as we put the cards back into the bucket. Then she picked up the 50 and said "safe." When she paused for a snack I made three categories. The green tissue box was "safe" and all the numbers written in green went next to the tissue box. The blue bucket was for blue numbers that went "plunk." In the middle went all the rest of the numbers with a "splat." I sorted them out loud and after a few minutes paused after holding up a card so that she could tell me where to put it. Then she came over to sort the cards herself. She needed lots of guidance but was definitely interested. When I wrote plunk, safe, and splat on the board, Sarah had a huge grin on her face. Later in the session we were looking at loose pictures and when she said "photo" I wrote it on the board. Again, she had a big grin. I love her growing delight in written words.
Last night before bed I read a book about a girl learning to read. I asked who in our house was learning to read. Sarah said, "Sarah." Amy said, "the birthday girl's sister!"
A few days ago we read Wacky Wednesday by Theo LeSieg (aka Dr. Seuss). The pictures have all sorts of things that are wacky and the reader's job is to find them. Amy and I found most of them but Sarah found a few. If you saw a pair of socks go flying, that was when Sarah pointed to the side-by-side traffic light that had the wrong colors paired with stop and go. I hadn't even noticed it as being wacky. For Sarah to know it was wacky means that she was definitely reading the words and knowing which word usually goes with which color. Awesome!
Both girls continue to experiment with new ways to go up and down our stairs (otherwise known as new ways to give me white hairs!). While I get nervous about them falling, I am totally impressed with how they want to make new challenges for themselves. I love that Sarah is a little daredevil. When she was a few years younger I never pictured her climbing up the stairs with one foot on the tiny ledge of the baseboard trim. Then again, perhaps she comes by this honestly. I used to climb up the outside of the staircase in my childhood home, all the way to the second floor, much to the fear of my babysitters and to the trusting credit of my parents. I think I am glad that we don't have that kind of staircase at our current house.
Sarah's participation in simple games continues to increase and improve. She and Amy and I played Busytown, a cooperative game based on Richard Scarry's books. We played half of the game together. During my SR time, Sarah and I played several turns of Dominoes.
When G. arrived Friday, he was wearing new jeans and we know how much Sarah loves such things. As he greeted her, G. said enthusiastically, "Go ahead, tell me I have new jeans." Sarah responded, "You are wearing new jeans!" This was totally awesome correct grammar and pronoun use. Sarah is clearly open to being corrected with her sentence structure and is increasingly using correct grammar. With L., Sarah created a game where she addressed each book and number card in the room with "Hello _____, how are you?" Within the last week I had updated our goals to helping Sarah ask simple questions, but I didn't email them to the group until L. was in her session. And then Sarah started doing it all on her own! The next step is to help her expect, and wait for, an answer.
With Sc., Sarah initiated taping a small circular container of hand lotion to the wall and saying it was a smoke detector. With M., Sarah played a little bit of Twister and then made the Twister mat a boat. I love the conversations I have with my volunteers after their sessions, where they say things like, "after we went to the store..." or "when we were at the coffee shop..." as if these things were so real. Because they were. Pretend real. Real pretend. Full real wonderfulness. Real wonderful pretendfulness.
I wish you all wonderful realness.
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