Sarah has a loose tooth. For real. Loose! I know the dentist had told me this several months ago but I couldn’t tell. Now, I can wiggle it myself. Wow!
One morning Carl showed Sarah a new word card with “black cat” and then showed the already familiar “red rose,” Sarah spontaneously said, “The black cat is holding a red rose.” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No, really!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have been letting Sarah look at the picture of Pluto on my phone that shows when we listen to dog music. I let her look for about a minute or two and then take it away. I explain that if she can stay calm about it, then she can look again later in the day. So far this seems to be working beautifully. I’m not sure how Son-Risey this is or if it will extend to other situations, but it is what we are doing for the moment.
As of now, Sarah’s kindergarten teacher thinks she doesn’t need a helper for Sarah next year. WOW!! If the class size grows then this may change, but for now it is awesome.
Thursday morning a small miracle occurred. Sarah got dressed all on her own without my even saying anything. It turned out that she did this because she saw Carl leave the house to go to work and she thought if she got ready fast enough she could go outside with him.
Friday and Saturday mornings you probably heard Sarah and me yelling at each other about her getting dressed, or lack thereof. I feel so frustrated when in theory she has something she wants to do that requires being dressed but she doesn’t get dressed. I keep resolving to stay calm and then I keep not staying calm. I keep thinking it is somehow a good idea to try getting her to get dressed. I think for now it is best if I abstain from any attempt because what has happened the past two days is I just get us into a yelling match and we are both upset and she isn’t dressed and then Carl or Sonia ends up successfully encouraging her to get dressed. So, I might as well just say that Carl and Sonia will always get her dressed and I will not even try. That perhaps will give us a break from our yelling matches, at least where dressing is concerned. I am also paying more attention to times when I get close to yelling but refrain and then celebrating those moments for myself. I am reminding myself that change is possible and that we can figure this out. I am reminding myself that just as I still love Sarah then I am still lovable. I have even had moments of realizing that I think my kids really do know they are loved, despite my times of yelling so loudly, and that is something. Maybe that is everything.
Yesterday I broke out my journal, which had not seen a pen since 2010. I thought maybe it would help to write it all out and ask myself why I get so frustrated and why, when I am so frustrated, I yell. Mainly I think it has to do with somehow believing that the key to our future happiness/success/hope/Sarah-being-“normal” is riding on her getting dressed on a given morning. Because I want so desperately to feel like I have any power or control and when she doesn’t get dressed then I panic about the lack of control overall and I think that if I yell loud enough and long enough then I will have control and scare her into submission. That is not a pretty thought, but it is good to air it out. Somehow I have it twisted that if she gets dressed then all of my hopes are possible and if she doesn’t then I am a failure forever. This would be very clearly not true if it were happening for someone else. In the moment, though, it feels very true. So, my first step is to keep reminding myself that our future success actually does not hang in the balance. Also, if it does, it hinges more on my staying calm than on her getting dressed. No problem! No pressure! Ack! Anyway, that leads me back to my resolve that for the time being I just won’t be involved in that interaction. Thank goodness I have that option.
When M. came to play with Sarah yesterday, Sarah was again talking about Baby Bear. She loves this play scenario, often involving crying and being cared for. M. brilliantly turned this into creating a huge drawing of a zoo.
When Sc. played with Sarah earlier in the week, Sc. had had a hard day. During a time of joining, Sc. felt sad and got a bit teary. Sarah immediately came over to comfort her, including calling on a pretend phone to say “Hello, Sc. is sad” and she pretended to drop off a bag of stuff to help her feel better, as we sometimes have done for friends who live nearby when they are dealing with hardship. I love this sweetness. I love that Sarah absorbed the idea of taking someone a bag of stuff as a way of demonstrating love and support. What a sweet little bean.
Love and support to all of you.
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