June 26

Sarah has been using some new words and I’m not sure where she has learned them but I love it. I love how often she says things that I find truly surprising and funny. On Monday with Sc, Sarah said something was terrifying. After dinner on Tuesday, she said, “Mom, I polished off my turkey burger."

Recently, Amy took her drawing supplies to a little platform on our playground equipment. When Sarah and I went out to invite her inside, Amy said she would come in when she was done with her writing and that she just wanted some quiet time. When she was done she used a butterfly net to carry her art supplies back into the house.

This morning, Sarah was pretending to eat amy’s toast saying “yum, yum, yum.” Amy was saying to stop. Carl told Sarah to “be quiet please” because the girls were watching a show. Sarah then still leaned towards Amy’s toast but this time said a very quiet “yum, yum yum.” 

Several weeks ago I signed Amy up for a ballet class at the same place she went last summer. Sarah kept saying she wanted to do it too. I kept thinking that it wouldn’t work out well, just as last summer it hadn’t worked out so well. I kept telling Sarah that she and I would stand outside and watch buses. She kept insisting that she wanted to be in the class. Yesterday morning was the first class and at the last minute I decided to sign Sarah up as well and we zoomed to Target to get her ballet slippers in time for class. I am so glad I did all of that. I wish I had decided earlier, but at least it was still in time. Two students were absent and so with Sarah there it was a class of 3. The other child was uncertain and reserved about the whole thing. Amy was very talkative and participated in everything. Sarah was talkative (though not only at the indicated times) and participated in most things. The teacher was relaxed, encouraging, and wonderful. She remembered Sarah from last year, even though she hadn’t been the main teacher. (Incidentally, Sarah went in and called the teacher the name of her teacher last summer, which I hadn’t even remembered!) I was also much more relaxed about the whole thing and decided that if the teacher didn’t mind Sarah sometimes getting up and moving around when it wasn’t the “right” time or coming to the door occasionally that that was ok. As I learned last summer, it is probably more disruptive for me to intervene. So I will just let things be unless the teacher asks for me. This was a dreamy situation to basically have a private class with only one extra kid and a teacher who was flexible and didn’t make the kids to do something they didn’t want to do. Awesome!

I hope you are all well.